


we've been making shades of purple out of red and blue

by wafflesofdoom



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Communication Issues, Established Relationship, M/M, Self Confidence Issues, Therapy, Toxic Masculinity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:55:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25108834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wafflesofdoom/pseuds/wafflesofdoom
Summary: eddie was the middle child – and the only boy. that had come with a weight of expectation that eddie, even now, in his thirties, was only beginning to fully grasp. eddie had been raised to be a provider - to provide a house, a car, a healthy bank balance, because that was what a real man did for his family, that was what his father had taught him.it had been a shock, to realise that wasn't what buck needed from their newly blossoming relationship.or - the one where eddie learns about love languages, sees the value in couples counselling, and allows himself to cry.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 29
Kudos: 426
Collections: 9-1-1 Tales





	we've been making shades of purple out of red and blue

Eddie hadn’t been entirely certain how being in a relationship with Buck would be – he hadn’t expected things to change an enormous amount, no, because he was comfortable with Buck in a way that he hadn’t really ever been with anyone else before, but he was under no illusions that their relationship changing from a platonic one, to a romantic one, wouldn’t have an effect. Of course – of course it would change things. The point was for it to change things, Eddie supposed – their friendship had always been one they had both felt deeply, but love, the kind of overwhelming, real, romantic love that they shared, the love that had grown from their easy friendship was different and it was changing their lives.

Eddie just – well, he hadn’t expected Buck, his boyfriend (that word felt so juvenile when it came to accurately describing what Buck meant to him now, but it would do - for now) to be so different to Buck, his best friend.

Eddie was a self-aware guy. Really, he was. He had known exactly what he was doing the day he walked into the army recruitment office and enlisted, knowing how Shannon would feel about it. He knew exactly what he was doing when he enlisted a second time. Maybe – maybe he didn’t know then the impact his actions would have, in the long term, but he had been self-aware enough to know that what he was doing was going to change the life he shared with Shannon forever.

But Eddie had done it, because Eddie had been raised to be a provider. Eddie’s parents – they were good people, they were. They weren’t perfect parents, sure, but they were good people, but now, the older Eddie got, the more he realised he had been shaped and moulded and raised to be oh-so very different to his sisters.

Eddie was the middle child – and the only boy. That had come with a weight of expectation that Eddie, even now, in his thirties, was only beginning to fully grasp. The man was the one who provided for the house. His father was living proof of that – Ramon Diaz had never been the most affectionate man, toward Eddie, at least. He was soft around his edges with the girls in a way he never was with Eddie, growing up, making sure Eddie always knew his role was to provide for his family - for his parents, for his sisters, for his wife, his son.

It had been part of why he’d enlisted, in the first place.

College had never been an option. His family couldn’t afford it – Sophia had gotten a full ride, and that was the only reason she’d gone. Eddie and Adrianna had made different choices, and Eddie – he wasn’t bitter about it. He had never been all that sold on the idea of college, and so when he and Shannon had gotten married, young and in love and so naïve to the ways the world worked, Eddie had tried to figure out how he could provide for the girl he’d married, because that was what he was supposed to do – provide.

The army had presented him with what seemed like a golden ticket to provide Shannon with money, and stability, and Eddie had taken it, signing the next few years of his life away to the US Army with a knot of uncertainty in his stomach.

He’d never really considered the military as a path he’d want to take, until the recruiter had convinced him.

And so, Eddie had provided. He’d provided everything bar the emotional support Shannon needed, and it had been long enough since the end of their marriage, since Shannon had died, that Eddie could own up to his role in the disaster that had been the life they shared together. His dad had taught him a lot of things, but never how to provide the kind of love the person you married needed.

A few months before they had started dating, Buck had read a book about love languages. Eddie never questioned the things that Buck read – his friend was always eager for new knowledge, and so it wasn’t unusual to find his work bag full of battered paperbacks he’d bought from the second-hand bookstore around the corner of the station (“The books need a new home, Eddie – and it saves me money!”) and Eddie was generally always happy to listen to whatever Buck’s new hyper fixation of the week was, but the love languages had stuck with him long after Buck had progressed onto a book about medieval torture, inspired by the weirdest call they’d ever taken in all Eddie’s years with the LAFD.

There was five love languages – that’s what Buck had explained. Words of affirmation, quality time, giving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. Buck had said something about how people disputed how healthy it was to focus on love languages in a relationship, but something had struck a cord with Eddie as he’d listened to Buck’s enthusiastic explanation as the team ate dinner.

He thinks Shannon’s love language was probably quality time – the one thing Eddie had never been good at giving her. Eddie had met Shannon for the first time his senior year of high school. She’d been a transfer, from another school, and Eddie had always noticed her watching football practice from the bleachers.

It had been cliché.

And then Shannon had left for college in the fall and Eddie had stayed in El Paso, taking a job with his uncle’s company and spending his days shifting heavy boxes around a warehouse and wondering if this was it – if this was all there was to life.

It hadn’t been the best time for him.

Shannon had come back two years later and transferred to the University of Texas in El Paso because her father was dying, and Eddie had met her while they were both in a dive bar on the other side of town, underage and definitely drunk, and they didn’t look back.

He’d married Shannon three weeks after she graduated college in a church ceremony that his abuela had cried over, and he’d started working a second job a week after their honeymoon to the Florida keys so that he could start saving enough money for a mortgage, and Eddie had been 23 when Shannon had handed him a positive pregnancy test, and he’d been 23 when he enlisted, and nowhere between the their wedding day and the day Eddie had shipped out, Shannon six month’s pregnant and crying her heart out, had Eddie spent any sort of quality time with her.

He’d been so worried about providing the physical, the financial – a house, a car, a future for their kid.

Eddie had never been good at giving Shannon what she needed.

But Buck –

God, Buck was something else. Eddie had never been the best with words – he’d blanched at the prospect of writing his own vows when he and Shannon had been planning the wedding, because no matter how much he loved Shannon, and Eddie had loved the bones of her, he really had, he had never been good at putting those feelings to words. It was the same, with Buck, though Eddie was a little better with words now, ten years on from when he’s married Shannon, Christopher’s bright smile and endearing way of expressing his every thought and emotion out loud making Eddie open in ways he never would have been if he hadn’t become a father.

The point was, Eddie found it hard to put how he felt about Buck into words. ‘I love you’ never felt like it was enough – how could those three simple words be enough for the way he felt about Buck? Eddie wasn’t sure they’d invented words for the feeling yet.

If they had, they weren’t words that Eddie knew.

And it was only getting more overwhelming, the longer they were together, because Buck – well, Buck, somehow, knew what Eddie’s love language was before Eddie had ever even considered it. Eddie might have said physical touch, if you asked him before he’d given it much thought, but he would have been wrong.

Buck was physical touch. Eddie had always been, on some level, aware of how tactile a person Buck was. He was prone to lean into whoever had a free arm in the station for a cuddle when they were having downtime between calls; he’d seen drunk Buck clinging to Maddie delightedly, his sister affectionately pressing kisses to Buck’s curls in a reassurance of her continued presence in his life; he’d even seen it with his own son, Buck always looking utterly delighted when Christopher would tiredly ask Buck to carry him, his son’s arms wrapped tightly around Buck’s neck as Buck would bring him to the car, or inside Eddie’s house.

Eddie was learning what that meant Buck needed from him, too. Something as simple as a brush of Eddie’s hand against Buck’s arm was enough to bring Buck back to planet Earth from wherever he’d gotten lost on a bad day; Eddie had started holding Buck’s hand on their drive to work, enjoying the way Buck would melt into his touch too much to care about how driving one-handed wasn’t exactly safe. The way Buck would slowly wake, in the morning, soft and pliant under Eddie’s hands as Eddie pressed kisses to every inch of exposed skin was utterly fucking showstopping, if you asked Eddie.

Buck thrived on being touched. Eddie had never bought into Buck’s self-diagnosed sex addiction – he had no doubt Buck had, at one point, a pretty unhealthy relationship with sex, but now, having dated him for months, Eddie was pretty certain it had just stemmed from Buck craving physical touch and intimacy, because – because well, sex with Buck was like nothing Eddie had ever experienced before, Buck responsive to Eddie’s touch in ways that Eddie couldn’t help be fascinated by.

Physical touch gave Buck something it had never given Eddie. It gave Buck _peace_. He – well, he’d never admit it aloud, but those first few weeks of their relationship, Eddie had sort of experimented with Buck’s reactions to touch. The mornings Eddie didn’t kiss him before they entered the station and put their professional personas on, Buck was keyed up and strung out; on the days Eddie would gently push Buck against the locked door of his truck and kiss him breathless, Buck would start their shifts with an air of peace and contentedness that Eddie couldn’t quite believe he was responsible for.

Eddie was learning what Buck needed – to be touched, to be reassured by Eddie’s hands on his body that Eddie wasn’t going anywhere, to have Eddie kiss promises of forever into the familiar warmth of Buck’s skin.

Eddie had just never paid much attention to what he himself needed until Buck figured it out for the both of them.

Eddie hadn’t realised how much he’d missed sharing a bed with someone he loved until he woke up alone in his bed – a rare occurrence, these days. He and Buck had dove headfirst into their relationship in a way that should have scared Eddie, but it didn’t. Like everything with Buck, it had felt right, and so who were they to deny themselves a warm body to sleep with at night and soft, sleepy kisses in the morning? Eddie might present himself to the word as a bit of a hard-ass, but he loved nothing more than waking up with his chin tucked into the groove of Evan Buckley’s neck and the other man’s arms around him.

Sue him, Eddie liked to be spooned.

Which was why it felt unusual to wake up to an empty bed, Eddie tiredly patting the side where Buck had passed out the previous night, both of them asleep before they hit the pillows, the shift from hell catching up to them.

He didn’t know where Buck was.

Eddie didn’t like that.

Frowning, Eddie blinked himself properly awake, spotting a pink post-it note stuck to one of the bedside lamps. Buck had been utterly horrified at the state of Eddie’s bedroom, nearly a year ago now, long before they started dating, and had dragged Eddie on a quest for more furniture, a day spent thrift shopping and a final stop at Ikea decking Eddie’s bare bedroom out with bedside tables, lamps, curtains that “didn’t make Buck want to put his head through a wall” and bedding and pillows that didn’t look like they came from the “section of target for depressed ex-Army men” (Buck’s words, not his.”)

Buck was a part of the most intimate parts of Eddie’s life long before Eddie realised why he was so comfortable having the other man there.

Rubbing roughly at his tired eyes, Eddie couldn’t help but smile as he read the words written carefully in Buck’s blocky handwriting. Buck – Buck hated anyone seeing his handwriting. Eddie hadn’t understood why, until one evening Buck had admitted over beer and a movie that he was ashamed of the childish blocky print. No one had ever helped him to learn the neat cursive most of the station were prone to, and Buck – well, he’d quietly admitted that he found it hard to read anyway, because he was dyslexic, and so print was easier for him.

But he had left Eddie a note.

_Eddie – sorry to sneak out. I’m taking Maddie to her doctor’s appointment. Wish I could stay in bed – I love you. Dinner? x_

Smoothing out the crumpled paper carefully, Eddie stashed it between the pages of the book he was pretending to read, ignoring the way his anxiety melted away, contentedness settling deep in his veins as he propped himself against the headboard, writing a quick text to Buck.

It was nice, knowing Buck also wished he was still in bed with Eddie.

It was the kind of reassurance Eddie didn’t realise he needed.

“He’s so grown up,” Eddie pouted, unashamed of his feelings when it was Buck who was sitting with them, each of them keeping a careful eye on Christopher as the little boy played with his newfound friends. Eddie used to watch Christopher like a hawk, at the playground, refusing to take his eyes off his son for even a second, but now he always had Buck by his side, Eddie was comfortable with one eye on Chris, and one on his boyfriend – and only because Buck was doing the same.

“Mm,” Buck nodded, fingers tangled loosely with Eddie’s. “He is.”

“I don’t want him to be,” Eddie sighed. “He’s started calling me dad, more.”

Buck raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that who you are?”

“Yeah, but…” Eddie wasn’t sure how he was going to explain to Buck that the first time his nine-year old son had called him dad, not daddy, it had shattered Eddie’s heart into a thousand pieces and Eddie was pretty sure the shrapnel was still floating around in there. “If he starts calling me dad, and not daddy, I’ve got to accept he’s a big kid now, and I don’t want to do that.”

“Aw, Eds,” Buck’s tone was teasing, but Eddie didn’t mind. “He’ll always be your baby. You know that, right?”

Eddie gave a petulant shrug.

“The only reason he’s so confident and grown up is because you taught him how to be,” Buck said, nudging at Eddie’s side. “You’re raising this brilliant, stubborn, strong-willed kid who’s ready to take on the world and he’s only nine, Eddie. You should be proud of yourself, not sad – you’re setting Chris up for life. A lot of parent’s don’t do that. Chris’ll thank you for it, when he’s older.”

“Maybe,” Eddie huffed, leaning into Buck’s side. “But I don’t know how I’ll ever look at him and not see the tiny baby he used to be.”

“That’s okay,” Buck hummed. “You’re an amazing dad, Eddie. That’s why he’s always going to need you.”

Eddie wasn’t ever too willing o voice his fears about parenthood aloud – not even to Hen, and she was the person he always turned to when it came to being a parent, the two of them swapping stories and articles and kid-friendly recipes for upping vegetable intake. But there was a lot Eddie was afraid of – and most of all, it was Christopher not needing him anymore.

He should have know Buck would know without Eddie even needing to tell him.

“Daddy,” Christopher’s tired voice came later, his son slumping against the squeaky red material of the diner bench they were sitting on. “I’m too tired to eat.”

“You’ve got to eat, buddy,” Eddie ran a hand through Christopher’s curls, wiping milkshake from his son’s nose. “Otherwise you’ll wake up hungry in the middle of the night.”

Christopher shook his head, curling into Eddie’s side, face nuzzling against Eddie’s chest. “Nope,” he whined clinging to the material of Eddie’s shirt.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Eddie smiled, glancing over at an equally happy looking Buck. “I’ll help you, but it’s got to be clean plates.”

Christopher beamed up at Eddie, that blinding smile that twisted Eddie’s heart up inside his chest with love. “Okay,” he agreed, clambering into Eddie’s lap without the slightest hint of gracefulness, his head lolling back against Eddie’s shoulder. “But Buck needs a clean plate, too.”

“He does,” Eddie agreed, spooning a forkful of mac and cheese into Christopher’s mouth. It was hardly the healthiest dinner, but it was a Saturday, and his kid deserved some junk every now and then. “But I think Buck needs you to show him how good you are at eating your vegetables first.”

Christopher and vegetables were a new, ongoing battle. Chris had always been good for eating (mostly) whatever Eddie put up in front of him, and like any self-respecting parent, Eddie was a dedicated fan of the secret vegetable pasta sauce, but he couldn’t hide veggies in Christopher’s meals forever.

Christopher grimaced. “But daddy – “

“You know the rules,” Eddie interrupted gently, holding a piece of tomato out for Chris. “Clean plates mean the veggies too, kid.”

Christopher pouted, but relented, earning himself a high-five from Buck, who unceremoniously shoved a forkful of salad into his mouth in response. “See Chris?” Eddie nudged. “Buck’s eating all his veggies too.”

Listen – maybe it was manipulative to use Christopher’s near hero-worship of Buck to his advantage, but it did mean that by time Christopher had passed out in Eddie’s arms, he’d eaten nearly all of the side salad he’d glared at when his dinner had arrived. That was a win, if you asked Eddie.

“See?” Buck smiled softly, sipping on the end of Christopher’s milkshake. “He’s always going to need you, Eddie.”

Eddie knew that, subconsciously.

He was just glad Buck was around to reassure him of that, sometimes.

Their relationship had been so problem free for the first six-months, Eddie knew the shoe was going to drop – and he knew he was going to be the one to cause it. Eddie was so deeply fucking insecure about himself, and there was only going to be so long he could hide it for before all the twisted, fucked up thoughts that plagued Eddie’s mind when he wasn’t with Buck came exploding out, painting the walls of the kitchen with all the things Eddie had been too ashamed to admit before as they tried to whisper their way through their first proper fight, Christopher already in bed.

Buck was crying.

Eddie fucking hated when Buck cried.

He hated that Buck _could_ cry, even more. Eddie had spent so many years forcing his tears down, forcing his feelings into military-like submission so that he could act the big man, be the tough guy, he thinks he might have forgotten how to cry.

Buck was crying, and it was Eddie’s fault.

“You’re crying,” Eddie whispered hoarsely, shaking hands pinned to his sides.

“Yes!” Buck hiccupped out. “Fuck you, Eddie, you don’t need to point it out,” he huffed, rubbing roughly at his eyes, his cheeks, turning the skin pink. Eddie wished he wouldn’t do that – it would only make his eyes hurt, later.

“I wish I could,” Eddie said softly. “Cry, I mean.”

Buck looked confused. “Why can’t you?”

“Because you’d think less of me,” Eddie said simply. “I’m supposed to be your boyfriend.”

“And that means you can’t cry?”

Yes.

Obviously.

Being someone’s boyfriend means that you’re their shoulder to cry on – not the other way around. Eddie’s role in Buck’s life was to be his support, his partner, to provide.

He couldn’t do that if he cried over every little insecurity that plagued his mind. If Eddie started crying about all the ways he knew he wasn’t good enough, he wasn’t sure he’d ever stop.

“Yes,” Eddie decided on a simple answer.

“Jesus Christ, Eddie,” Buck ran a frustrated hand across his face. “This whole macho, big man thing – you don’t need to be that with me. Okay?”

Not okay.

Because Eddie didn’t know how to be someone’s boyfriend if he wasn’t trying to be that guy – the strong, macho kind of guy who needed to provide and protect.

Eddie told Buck exactly that.

“I don’t need you to be that for me,” Buck shook his head. “Who told you that’s what a boyfriend is, Eddie?”

His mom. His dad. His cousins. His uncle, who’d sat him down over a beer and explained how he needed to put Shannon’s happiness ahead of his own, or his marriage wouldn’t last. His sister’s, who’d always make sure he was the one who was pretending to work for the sake of the family they’d pretend to be as they played in the garden, every summer until Adrianna was eleven and too cool to play with her little brother.

Eddie told Buck that, too.

“They’re wrong,” Buck said firmly. “What am I supposed to be doing if you’re the one doing all the providing and protecting, huh?”

Eddie –

Well, he wasn’t actually sure.

“I don’t know,” Eddie admitted quietly, lip trembling. “No one ever told me. Or – maybe I didn’t listen.”

“I’m asking you to listen now,” Buck said, cheeks still glistening with tears. Eddie wanted to kiss them away and take back every second of the last hour and go back to being the happy Eddie and Buck they had been before they’d had a stupid fight. “We’re equals in this relationship, Eddie. I don’t need you to provide for me or put on this show of not having feelings because you think I need to be protected from how you feel. I want to know it all – good, and bad.”

“I don’t know how to do that,” Eddie’s voice seemed to be working of its own accord.

“That’s okay,” Buck stepped closer. “We can figure it out together.”

“I just want us to be happy again.”

“Eddie, we’re not unhappy because we’ve had a fight,” Buck’s hands were on his cheeks now, warm against Eddie’s clammy skin. “We’re just figuring out how to make sure this is forever. We’re going to fight, Eds. It doesn’t mean I love you any less.”

Eddie’s lip was trembling again, and the tears were coming before he could blink them back. “Please don’t leave me, Buck.”

Buck’s arms were around him in an instant, and Eddie broke, crying hysterically into Buck’s chest, the kind of tears Eddie wasn’t sure he had ever cried before, because boys didn’t cry, and that had been drummed into Eddie’s head from the moment he was old enough to understand that boys and girls were different and so there was different expectations for who he would be, compared to Adrianna and Sophia.

Boys didn’t cry but Eddie was crying now, anguished hiccups escaping his mouth as he clung to Buck like a child.

Buck’s words cut through the white noise of his brain, sure and measured and the only truth Eddie ever wanted to be sure of. “I’m never going to leave you, Eddie.”

There was a part of Eddie that believed couples counselling meant failure. He didn’t want to admit that aloud, but he had to, because his new therapist was looking at him with the kind of face Eddie’s deep-rooted Catholic guilt wouldn’t let him lie to.

Buck had suggested someone outside of the department, and Eddie had been helpless to do anything but agree. He wanted to be better, for Buck and for Christopher and for the rest of his family, and so he’d started therapy, again – not because Bobby had made it mandatory, not because Shannon had begged him to go and see someone at the VA, but because he’d wanted to. Lucy Power was a scarily confident woman in her mid-fifties who’d dug into Eddie’s deepest fears and insecurities in ways he hated her for, and she’d been the one to suggest that they, for a few weeks at least, convert one of Eddie’s two sessions a month into a session with Buck.

He’d said yes.

Eddie had wanted to say no.

He couldn’t say no, because he wasn’t supposed to say no to progress.

“Evan,” Lucy began, glancing over at Buck. “What do you need from Eddie in order for your relationship to work for you?”

“For him to be present,” Buck’s answer was simple but it still felt like a dagger to Eddie’s chest. “I don’t mean that he’s not – he is, most of the time. But I don’t need someone to provide for me, I need Eddie to just be there. The rest is easy, for me.”

“Does that make sense to you, Eddie?”

No.

Yes.

No.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because – because I don’t know how to be someone’s boyfriend if I’m not providing for them,” Eddie admitted, staring directly at the ceiling. “Shannon was my first real relationship and everyone told me I needed to provide for her because that’s what husbands do and so I just – I provided.”

“Do you think you provided Shannon with everything she needed?”

Eddie hated therapists.

“No,” he sighed. “Not everything.”

“Not everything,” Lucy had this habit of repeating Eddie’s words back to him and making the stupidity that came out of Eddie’s mouth sound even worse than it did the first time around. “Eddie, the relationships we’re surrounded by and influenced by as children have a huge affect on how we approach our relationship as adults. You were taught as a child that your role in someone’s life is to provide. That’s noble, but it’s not all you’re good for.”

Eddie sometimes wasn’t sure what he was good for.

“Evan,” Lucy’s voice was measured. “Can you tell Eddie some of the things about your romantic relationship that make you feel good?”

Buck’s snigger was all too in character. “Sorry,” he corrected himself. “I was just trying to think of the most appropriate way to say sex,” he admitted. “But now I’m thinking about it, that’s not the thing I’d list – even though its great. Eddie makes me feel safe, makes me feel like I have a home. That means a lot to me, because I’ve been on my own, for a lot of my life. And – he never makes me feel dumb, or annoying.”

Eddie caught Lucy’s questioning look.

“People have always had a way of making me feel like an idiot, because I’m not traditionally smart, I guess,” Buck continued. “I’m not, go to college, book-smart kind of smart, at least. But I’ve always been interested in learning and I just – I need to tell people about the things I learn, and other people pretend to listen, but Eddie really listens, and that means a lot.”

Eddie hadn’t realised that.

“He makes me feel included, in his life,” Buck continued. “I know it hasn’t been easy for him to introduce me as his boyfriend, but Eddie didn’t hold back – he introduced me to his grandmother, and his aunt, and we have Sunday lunch, on the days we’re not working. I feel included in his family, with his son.”

Obviously.

“He’s kind,” Buck was still talking. How was Buck still taking? “Eddie doesn’t realise how kind he is, sometimes. He’s so kind to me, because I know I can be hyperactive and a bit annoying, frankly, but Eddie is never annoyed by it. Oh, and he is so funny – man, Eddie makes me laugh like no one else in the world can.”

“Buck – “

“I’m not finished,” Buck interrupted gently. “He’s more of a romance than he lets other people see. Eddie took me on a date, the other week, to the beach, and we had a picnic. Best date of my life.”

“Has Evan mentioned money, Eddie?” Lucy questioned.

No.

Obviously not.

“No,” Eddie’s voice was quiet. “He didn’t.”

“Every relationship we have comes with different needs,” Lucy continued. “But you need to allow your partner to be the one to voice those needs, Eddie. Your expectations of a relationship may not always match their needs and that’s where problems arise.”

“Okay.”

“What do you need from a relationship, Eddie?”

Eddie swallowed thickly. “I don’t know.”

Couples counselling doesn’t mean failure. Couples counselling doesn’t mean failure. Couples counselling doesn’t mean failure. If Eddie repeats the words enough times, maybe – maybe he’ll start to believe it’s true.

“Eddie.”

Hen’s calming voice interrupted his frenzied train of thought. “Hi, Hen,” he said, looking up from the inventory he wasn’t doing.

“Talk to me,” Hen said.

“I don’t know how.”

“By using your words,” Hen rolled her eyes fondly, directing Eddie to sit on a bench. “What’s wrong?”

“Is everything easy, with you and Karen?” Eddie couldn’t help but blurt.

Hen was quiet for a second, and Eddie was so sure he’d fucked it up –

“No,” Hen admitted. “It’s easier now, but we’ve been together a long time. At the beginning, it was hard. I wasn’t good at letting her in, letting her see all the good and bad and broken parts of me. I was so fucked up, after Eva – that relationship closed me off in ways it took me a long time to work past. The first year, we just had to work every day to communicate.”

“Buck is just so good at it,” Eddie sighed. “Expressing how he feels, I mean.”

“He is,” Hen agreed. “I think some people are naturally good at putting their heart on the line, and Buck is one of those people. I’ve never met a man so unashamed of his own tears – I admire it. I wish I could be more like him sometimes. But the point is, Eddie, I’m not Buck – so I have to find my own ways to process and express my feelings. Communication isn’t a one size fits all – what works for me and Karen mightn’t work for you two.”

“Do you think we’ve failed, if we try couples counselling this early on?”

“No,” Hen’s voice was firm. “I think it means you’re recognising you’ve got work to do to build a healthy foundation to your relationship, and I admire that. I think a lot of people would stay in love for a lot longer if they worked on the basics before they jumped into the happily ever after.”

“Talk to me,” Buck was kneeling on the floor of the living room, hands on Eddie’s needs, a look of concern on his face. “Eddie, come on, talk to me.”

“It’s not going to make sense.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Buck shook his head. “It doesn’t have to make sense.”

“I can’t shake the feeling that you’re going to leave me,” Eddie admitted, hands shaking as he held them close to his chest, heart thundering in his chest. “I don’t want to be like this, Buck, but I am, and I’m just waiting for you to realise what….”

“What Shannon did?” Buck supplied.

“Yes.”

“Why did Shannon leave?” Buck asked.

“Because I couldn’t provide for her.”

“Would Shannon agree with that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do,” Buck argued. “She was your wife, Eddie. Would Shannon agree with you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

Because Shannon had always forgiven him more than he deserved to be forgiven.

“She left because I wasn’t a good husband,” Eddie tried again.

“Why?”

“Buck – “

“No, you started this conversation, I’m not letting you drop it. Why were you a bad husband?”

“Because I couldn’t be there for her when she needed me the most,” Eddie admitted, rubbing roughly at his eyes. “She needed me, not money.”

Eddie hadn’t really admitted that out loud, before.

“Can I tell you something, now?” Buck asked, squeezing Eddie’s knees.

Eddie nodded.

“When I nearly died, under that ladder truck, you were there,” Buck began. “You know what I remember about that night?”

Eddie shook his head.

“You, and Hen – holding my hands, keeping me calm as they tried to get the truck off me,” Buck said. “I remember you holding my hand the whole way in the ambulance, and just talking to me, trying to keep me awake. I remember you bringing me books, every time you came to the hospital. I remember you being there, Eddie – not your money, you.”

“That’s different.”

“Why?” Buck asked. “I was in love with you then, I’m in love with you now. Even back then, when we were friends, you gave me what I needed, which was you and your support. You dragged me out of bed – literally – when I was too depressed to do anything. Fuck, Eddie, you helped me shower, you cooked me meals. You gave me so much of your time and you didn’t ask for anything in return. You are not the same man now, that you were when you married Shannon. You can’t blame yourself for everything that went wrong for the rest of your life, Eddie. Wouldn’t she want you to be happy?”

Eddie wondered that, sometimes. He and Shannon – they never had a chance to figure out how they might have worked as co-parents, not husband and wife. Eddie liked to think that they could have been better, if they were focused on giving Christopher the support and love he needed, instead of trying to make a broken marriage work – but he’ll never know that.

He’d like to think she’d want him to be happy.

Shannon had been a good person. She wouldn’t have denied him happiness, he didn’t think.

“I think she would,” Eddie admitted, linking his fingers with Buck’s. “I just feel guilty, that I get to fall in love again and build a life and she doesn’t.”

“I can’t tell you not to feel that guilt – it’s understandable,” Buck said. “But I can tell you one thing, Eddie. I’m not Shannon, and you’re not the same Eddie you were back then. We are different, we’re different people, and our relationship is different.”

“I love you,” Eddie said the words like a prayer, pressing a kiss to the corner of Buck’s mouth.

“I’m never going to leave,” Buck said, gathering Eddie into his arms. “So, you need to stop trying to force me to. I’m here, forever.”

“Forever?”

“Beyond forever,” Buck hugged him so tightly it felt like Eddie was going to explode. “Forever and ever.”

“’S’not a real thing.”

“It is,” Buck reassured. “I’d have loved you in every life, Eddie. I am going to love you in every life. So, get used to me being here.”

Promises of forever and ever should have scared Eddie to his core.

But they didn’t.

Those promises were the words of reassurance Eddie needed to hear.

Buck was asleep in Eddie’s lap. The familiar weight of his boyfriend was a comfort, Buck snoring softly, face pressed to Eddie’s stomach. He should probably want Buck to be awake, for them to talk, and spend time together, but this was enough, this was what Buck needed, and Eddie was happy to provide –

He was trying to use the word provide less.

Lucy disagreed.

She felt he needed to give new connotations to the word provide – to say he was providing emotional support, providing physical touch, providing Buck with time and energy.

Whatever word he used, Eddie was focusing on giving Buck the things he needed. Love, and attention, and affection.

He’d found the love languages book when he was staying over at Buck’s apartment, the other night, and he’d slipped it in his bag to read. Eddie hadn’t had a chance, until now, and carefully, making sure not to jostle Buck, Eddie eased open the battered copy. Buck read differently to anyone else Eddie knew – the margins were full of handwritten notes and arrows, sentences highlights. It was the same way Buck studied anything they were sent from LAFD, fingers covered in brightly coloured ink as he did his best to absorb the information in a way that made the most sense to him.

Words of affirmation.

Eddie hadn’t realised how much he needed words of affirmation – not just from Buck, but from everyone he loved. The moments where his abuela told him he was proud of him, they were the ones Eddie held on to. Christopher whispering that he loved Eddie, that he was the best daddy, were words Eddie wanted tattooed onto his heart. Buck telling him he loved him, he would never leave – that was the kind of love Eddie needed, the kind of love that was sinking right into the core of who he was and making it so Eddie was never going to be able to live his life without Evan Buckley by his side.

Words of affirmation.

Eddie needed to hear it.

That was what he needed.

“I did some homework,” Eddie admitted, glancing between Lucy and Buck. “About what I need from a relationship.”

Lucy looked pleased. “Go on.”

“Buck – Evan – he read a book about love languages, a couple of months ago,” Eddie said, looking at Buck again. “It kind of just stuck with me.”

“Evan?”

“Yeah, I – I found it in a thrift store,” Buck explained. “I liked the cover, more than anything, and then I read it, and I thought it was really interesting. I think – I think a lot of people consider it outdated, but it made a lot of sense to me, at least.”

Lucy nodded. “I take it you both have an idea of your respective love languages?” she asked.

Eddie nodded, Buck mimicking his action.

“Okay, well – I’d like you both to write down now, what you consider your love language to be,” Lucy said, handing them both a stack of post-it notes and pens. “Fold it over, and swap, when you’re done – but don’t look.”

Eddie paused for a second before he wrote it down, folding it carefully and passing it over to Buck, who handed his own with a smile.

“Eddie, what do you think Buck’s love language is?”

“Physical touch,” Eddie said, without a moment’s hesitation. Unfolding the paper carefully, Buck’s blocky handwriting looked back at him, physical touch written in blue, stark against the white of the paper. “Buck said physical touch too.”

Lucy’s face was unreadable. “And Evan, what do you think Eddie’s love language is?”

“I wondered, for a while,” Buck admitted. “Eddie isn’t always the easiest person to read. But once we started dating, I thought it was really obvious, to me at least. It’s words of affirmation.”

Eddie’s heart was thundering against his rib cage as he watched Buck unfolding the piece of paper, knowing full well that ‘words of affirmation’ was written there.

“Words of affirmation,” Buck smiled.

“I won’t pretend like I know a lot about love languages,” Lucy said. “But it’s clear to me that you two are learning what you need from each other. Relationships take a lot of work, and in these few sessions we’ve had together, I can see you’re both willing to put that work in. That’s what matters here.”

“Eddie,” Lucy stopped Eddie before he could leave the room. “I know this was our last session, together – but I wanted to give you one final piece of advice, if that’s okay.”

Eddie nodded.

“Allow yourself to be happy, Eddie. That’s the best thing you can do for you, and Evan. Embrace the uncertainty of life and be happy while doing it.”

“I love you,” Buck’s voice was soft against Eddie’s ear. They’d decided to take a vacation, just the two of them, heading up the coast to a beach house for three days of sun, sand, sea and each other. It was coming up on their first anniversary, and Eddie knew people expected them to come back engaged – but he also knew it wouldn’t be happening.

Not on this trip.

Eddie had spent a lot of his life living in line with other people’s expectations, and he didn’t want to do that anymore. He was going to marry Buck, one day – in front of all their family, and friends, and without an ounce of shame. He had promised himself that, and he’d promised Buck that.

But it wasn’t the right time, yet.

They’d built a sort of unmovable foundation to their relationship over the last year that Eddie hadn’t been sure he would ever have, after Shannon, and Eddie felt safe, and comfortable, and at peace, in Buck’s arms, with Buck’s clothes taking up half his closet, Buck’s collection of battered paperbacks scattered around the house.

They would take this at their own pace – not the one expected of them.

“I’m so glad I met you, Eddie.”

Eddie pressed every word into Buck’s skin in reply.

“I love you forever.”

Eddie had kissed every inch of Buck’s skin in response.

“You make me so happy, Eddie.”

Eddie kissed the palm of Buck’s hand in reply, burrowing closer to Buck’s chest, the sun fading over the horizon in shades of gold and pink and orange. “You make me happy too, Ev.”

_Allow yourself to be happy._

Eddie could do that.

**fin**


End file.
